• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

F-16 Peace Puma

The Chilean F-16 Peace Puma program is the cornerstone of a twenty-five year period of close cooperation between the USAF and Chilean Air Force (CAF). The FACh selected the F-16 Block 50 in 2000 for a 10-aircraft order. That was followed in 2004 by a batch of 18 second-hand F-16A/B mid-life update Block 20s from the Netherlands, and in 2008 by a second batch of another 18 F-16A/Bs.

The Peace Puma program provided Chile with the latest in multi-role fighters, thereby strengthening the region’s air defense and strike capabilities. In January 2000, the Chilean Air Force took delivery of the first of ten Block 50 F-16s. These state-of-the-art aircraft represent the very best aspects of the security cooperation program in pursuit of the two nations’ mutual goals.

Peace Puma supported the defense and security requirements of Chile in the most expeditious and cost effective manner possible. They were the centerpiece of the Air Force-to-Air Force relationship and are a significant milestone furthering U.S. and Chilean relations as the two nations adapt to overcome the threats poised by regional and global adversaries.

In addition to hardware upgrades, the Peace Puma program served to enhance professional relationships and foster technical expertise. The Chilean Defense Forces had not been major foreign military sales customers in the past. The majority of US origin items found in their militaries have come from direct commercial sales and have been limited to minor equipment. However, the purchase of ten F-16s by the Chilean Air Force was the largest foreign military sales case in South American history.

During the Cold War, the United States would freely sell or transfer arms directly to those states that supported US national security policy. Simply put, if a state was anti-communist, they qualified as an arms customer. Latin America, being a Cold War hot spot for communist and leftist flare-ups, was a recipient of large amounts of United States weaponry in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Unfortunately, many leaders of Latin America who the US supported with arms to fight communist insurgency turned out to be pretty unsavory characters who were not reluctant to use these weapons on their own people to stay in power. This led to Congress taking much tighter control of the process by linking a state’s human rights record with their eligibility to buy or receive arms from the United States.

The capstone event to this trend occurred in 1977 when President Carter issued Presidential Directive(PD)-13 which required that all arms transfers be directly linked to United States security interests and tied them closely to the human rights record of recipient governments.4 Moreover, PD-13 prohibited the United States from introducing weapons more sophisticated than weapons already in the region. We did not want to give any particular state a significant technological edge in military hardware over that of their neighbors in the region.

During the campaign, Clinton indicated he would reduce the sale of United States weaponry to other countries, but it wasn’t long before our campaign mantra of ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ became the driving force in domestic policy. The defense industry was very important to the economy and it was taking some serious hits in the defense downsizing that followed the Cold War. The economic realities of a shrinking defense industry and the associated job loss combined with serious congressional pressure resulted in Clinton issuing Presidential Directive-34 in early 1995.

PD-34 was important for two reasons. First, it clearly stated that conventional arms transfers should be used as a ‘legitimate instrument of foreign policy.’ Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the directive implied that a strong, sustainable defense industrial base is an important national security concern, not just a commercial concern of importance to the domestic economy.

There was plenty of pressure on Clinton to maintain the ban and not sell the advanced weapons to Latin America — the F-16s to Chile in particular. Several senators, including Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) were quite vocal against the arms sale. A high profile letter to Secretary Christopher, signed by twenty-nine non-governmental organizations (NGO) and special interest groups, strongly urging him not to promote the sale of advanced weapons to Latin America. The signatories were an eclectic bunch ranging from domestic groups such as ‘Women’s Strike for Peace’ and the United Methodist Church to international groups such as ‘Peru Peace Network’ and the ‘Guatemala Partners’ organization. The Council for a Livable World — a powerful and sophisticated special interest and Washington lobbying group — worked very hard to organize NGOs and other interest groups to act against President Clinton’s policy shift in general and the sale of the F-16 to Chile in particular.

Opponents argued that the sale would contribute to the destabilization of the region and possibly trigger a destructive arms race. Moreover, they argued that the high-tech aircraft would do little to combat the new security threats emerging in the region, including narcotrafficking, leftist guerilla movements, social inequalities, and various forms of ‘white collar’ crime such as money laundering and corruption. Simply put, they argued that the large amounts of money — up to $600 million — would be put to better use if Chile invested the resources in law enforcement, education, health-care, and job creation programs.

For the most part, the Latin American response — with the exception of the Chilean government — was very much against the arms sale. One of the most influential protesters was the former president of Costa Rica and Nobel peace prize laureate Oscar Arias. In fact, shortly after the decision was made in 1997 to authorize United States firms to participate in the Chilean jet fighter competition, Arias joined with former President Jimmy Carter and the heads of state of most Latin American countries to call for a two-year continuation of the moratorium on arms transfers to allow time to study the regional impact of introducing a new, high-tech weapon system.

On 01 August 1997, following a review of Administration security policy in Latin America, President Clinton shocked much of the Washington establishment when he ended the twenty year moratorium on the sale of advanced military equipment to Latin America. Clinton decided to establish a process for case—by-case consideration of requests for advanced arms transfers to countries of that region. This decision put US arms transfer policy toward Latin America on a par with US policy toward other regions of the world and will be implemented in a way that serves US objective of promoting stability, restraint, and cooperation in the region.

By 1997 the Chilean government was engaged in a process of soliciting international bids for advanced ?ghter aircraft. While the policy review was ongoing, the US informed Chile that it could provide technical data but that the White House had not made a decision whether the US was prepared to approve the transfer of US origin advanced ?ghters to Chile.

Congressmen who were very much in support of the policy reversal wanted to sell the planes to Chile. There was a strong bipartisan effort to support the sale of the F-16s to Chile citing the ‘if we don’t sell the weapons somebody else will’ argument. No one was pushing this argument harder than the aerospace industry, particularly the lobbyists from Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin had — at least since 1992 — consistently contributed two to three times more than any other aerospace company to political campaigns. Moreover, they had been an equal opportunity contributor. The Democratic and Republican Party received about the same amount, with a slight majority of contributions going to whichever party was in control of the House or Senate in any given election year. They were a smart lobbying group. The defense industry did not — by a long shot — contribute the most money to political campaigns. For example, since 1990, labor organizations had contributed $345 million to political campaigns compared to the defense industry’s $66 million.

After an intense four-year competition, on 27 December 2000 the Government of Chile announced its decision to purchase 10 to 12 new production Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft. By early 2002 the package had received all necessary U.S. government approvals. Chile became the 21st country to operate the F-16. Chile acquired a Block 50/52 configuration of the F-16C/D aircraft tailored to meet the specific requirements of the Chilean Air Force (FACH). The sale included the aircraft, mission equipment and a support package provided by Lockheed Martin and many other U.S. contractors. The F-16 aircraft replaced the A-37 Dragonfly in FACH service.

In the competition in Chile, the F-16 was selected over the Boeing F/A-18, Dassault Mirage 2000-5 from France and the SAAB Gripen from Sweden. The $700 million deal for 10 F-16 CD jets was the largest US arms sale to Latin America in two decades. The fighters are part of a package including spare parts, maintenance, training and two KC-135 tanker aircraft. The sale is the first authorized since President Clinton lifted a ban dating to the 1970s on such transfers to Latin America. The prohibition had remained in effect, even though in 1983 President Reagan allowed Venezuela to acquire 22 early-model F-16s.

On 13 June 2001, the Pentagon — specifically the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) — officially notified Congress of the president’s intent to sell the aircraft to Chile. The issue was front-page news in much of South America.

On July 6th, 2005 Lockheed Martin flew the first F-16 produced for the Chilean Air Force on its initial production acceptance flight. Two flights were successfully accomplished here on June 23, with no discrepancies reported on either flight. This milestone follows the April 14 inauguration ceremony for Chile's Peace Puma program held at Fort Worth attended by the Chilean Minister of Defense, Jaime Ravinet, the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force, Gen. Osvaldo Sarabia, and Chile's Ambassador to the United States, Andrés Bianchi. All 10 aircraft were delivered in 2006.

In September 2010 Chile started to take delivery of Dutch F-16 fighter, as part of a deal that would see the Chilean air force making more use of the refurbished jets. A total of 18 of the refurbished F-16s were to be delivered to Chile at the Leeuwarden Air Base in the Netherlands and more were due for transfer to the Latin American country at a later stage. Chilean officials said the final number of F-16s in the air force could total 44 by 2011.

By 2014 Chile’s fleet of F-16s comprised 10 block 50 machines bought new from the US and 36 acquired second-hand from the Netherlands. The Air Force would prefer to acquire some additional Block 50 machines and reduce the number of second-hand versions while retiring its F-5Es. It aimed to reach a mix of 36 F-16s upgraded with a common active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, mission computers and advanced new-generation weapons.